


I'm under that night (I'm under the same stars)

by lachambre11



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-08
Updated: 2012-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-30 19:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachambre11/pseuds/lachambre11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all the ways that Eduardo has ever hurt Mark, this has got to be, by far, the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm under that night (I'm under the same stars)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction, based on fictionalized personas as presented in the movie The Social Network. No profit is being made; I don't own anything or anybody. Also, if you got here by Googling yourself, then I’m not being sneaky enough, and for that I apologize.

** *˜* **

 

 _ Close your eyes.  
A lover is standing too close _ _  to focus on. _

He never saw it. All those little clues, all those little touches, meant to be comforting, meant to be safe. He never really saw for what it was, all those  _I’m here for you, you can’t tell me anything_  slipping easy from his lips, not a restrain in sight, always willing to give, always giving willingly.  
  
Until he wasn’t anymore, and Mark stood by a broken laptop, an ever-growing company and his best friend staring at him from across the table with guarded eyes and their past and all of the things left unsaid hanging between them, thick, fucked-up, and  _I was your only friend._  
  
He never saw it, not until that moment.

He’d been standing too close, too focused on anything else but this, and he’d never seen for what it was – all those words, and the money, and touches, and anger. He’d never got it until he’d looked at Eduardo, listened to it on his voice, all those things he’d said but Mark never really registered until he could not stop hearing them anymore, until he realized that he would never get to hear them again.  
  
 _ I love you,  _ it was what  Eduardo had told him in so many different ways without saying the words.

 _ I forgive you,  _ was what he was telling him now.  _If you say you’re sorry now, I forgive you. I’ll forgive you_.  
  
But the words never quite make it past his lips.

 _When we were little we made houses out of_  
 _cardboard boxes. We can do anything._  
 _It's not because_   _our_ _hearts are large,_  
 _they're not, it's what we_  
 _struggle with._

  
Eduardo gives him an envelope with a check written on it, and Mark can already see his dreams laid out in front of him, his whole future expanding, shaping into million different ways, catapulting into the great unknown, the big question,  _what comes next_ , this is it, the beginning and the end, and in retrospect, he would’ve come to realize it was also the begging of the end.  
  
But scratch that, rewind it, he’s back at that moment when the company is starting to take flight and now they have interns, and the money for California, and Wardo is standing across the room looking at him, smiling at him, fond and exasperated and proud, and his fingers itch to touch those lips, those eyes, and he can’t move, won’t move, he keeps waiting for Wardo to reach for him, but he also never does.  
  
He attempts to smile, and Eduardo seems to get it. He always did, back then.  
  
He has everything he has ever wanted, now. He can do anything. He will do anything.  
  
He should’ve have walked across that room and kissed Eduardo when he’d the chance.

_ This is the map of my heart, the landscape _   
_ after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is  
a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying   
Hold me tight, it's getting cold.  _

  
The results come back from the laboratory, and they get called in. The doctor’s face is friendly, but his eyes betray him, his eyes speak of the unspeakable, of all the things Mark will lose once the words slip past his lips, words like  _pancreatic cancer, metastasis, chemotherapy, getting you comfortable,_ and the worst part of it, the words that hit like a punch in the gut _, ten months at best._  
  
Wardo’s hands shake in his, and Mark grips it back, hard enough to hurt.  
  
In ten months it will all be over, and they didn’t have enough time, will never have time now, Mark’s wasted too much time –  
  
“Hey, it’s okay, everything is gonna be okay,” Eduardo tells him once they’re back home, and Mark can’t seem to stop shaking, his hand still gripping Eduardo’s like it will make a difference, like it will stop whatever’s coming for him to cease and desist,  _oops, wrong diagnostic, you get ten more years instead._  
  
Ten more years.  
  
He’s not even bargaining for forever anymore, because ten years sounds pretty fucking great when you actually have, at best, ten more months, three hundred days of seeing Wardo wasting away, slipping away from him, and never, ever, coming back.

 

_ We have not touched the stars, _   
_ nor are we forgiven, which brings us back  
to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,  
not from the absence of violence, but despite  
the abundance of it. _

His hands are a curse and blessing, trailing paths of fire and redemption across Mark’s skin, his name stitched over and over across Mark’s body, his eyes burned on Marks' eyelids, his name on Mark's lips, and Mark gets to touch, and taste, and discover, and he can still see the care on the way Eduardo kiss him, the softness on his eyes, even when he slides inside Mark. He can still see all those things even when Eduardo just takes, takes everything he can have, even when he looks at Mark like he wants to punch him around, even when he touches Mark like he wants to reach inside his skin and grab at whatever’s inside of him, clutch it in his bare hands, rip it out and never let it go, like a trophy, tangible proof that despite being the one doing the giving, Eduardo still managed to get something out of Mark that’s not money, that no one can buy, that no one’s ever gotten to have before.  
  
Mark looks at him and still sees Wardo, he sees past this stranger lying on his bed, past his anger and his righteousness, and Mark can still recognize the wonder, the disbelief, the naked hope that Eduardo pretends he doesn’t feel when Mark reaches for his hands, even after it’s over and they’re naked and sweaty and just on the wrong side of spent.  
  
Mark sees all those things, and he knows he can reconcile those two people, the Wardo from before with the Eduardo from now, and that he wants it, both of them, any of them, any shape of form, the stranger or the friend, in any way that he can have.  
  
He’s selfish, had never pretended to be anything but otherwise, and he’s not enough of a coward to pretend to himself anymore that he doesn’t want  _this_ , this body, this person, this heart that he’d taken extreme care into shattering into pieces.  
  
He wants it, and he doesn’t care if he has to put the pieces back together, is even looking forward to do it, to reconciling this  _Eduardo_ with his own  _Wardo_  and creating a version 2.0, fresh starts and all that, cliché or not, Mark wants to takes this thing and run with it.  
  
 _ Stay,  _ is what he tells him when Eduardo starts to move away.   
  
He’s not surprised when he doesn’t listen, it’s been years since he’d actually bothered to really hear what Mark was saying at all, but this time, this time Mark’s ready to say it again, he’s even ready to say all the things he couldn’t, wouldn’t, the first time around.  
  
 _ Stay. I want – I need you,  _ and Eduardo freezes.  _Or go. I’ll follow you anywhere._   
  
And this time, it makes a difference.

  _I'll give you my heart to make a place_  
 _for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.  
Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars  
for you? That I would take you there?_

“You didn’t have to,” Eduardo, too-pale-too-thin Eduardo, Wardo 2.0, tells him when he presents him with tickets. “I promised I’m not dying on you, Mark.”  
  
“I know,” he agrees, and he wants to believe in that, needs to, but he’s older now, maybe even wiser, and he’s not leaving all of this up to blind faith, he needs back-up plans, he needs Wardo to be happy, and healthy, and  _alive_ . He wants his eyes to ignite under his touch, his lips to redden and push back against Mark’s lips, wants a lifetime and everything that comes with it, wants to keep him, wants do it over, he just – he wants. “But just in case.”  
  
Eduardo gives in, and Mark likes to think it’s not because he’s indulging him, knows that they’d grown, together and apart, and that the old patterns of their previous relationship don’t apply to this new one, and he’s right for the most part.  
  
He gives in because he too also hopes, he too just  _want_ , and also because he’s never been good at denying Mark things, and this time, they’re both okay with that.

_ There's a litany of dreams that happens _   
_ somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling  
on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we  
transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands  
and record stores. Moonlight making crosses  
on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one._

_   
_

Between the broken laptop and the tumor growing inside Eduardo’s body, there were many years with good stuff and bad stuff in it. There were lonely years, and Singapore, and Facebook expanding and going places, lost birthdays and over 500 million members. There was Chris saving the world and fighting for equality, Dustin falling in love and creating something of his own, Sean crashing and burning and creating and crashing again. There were girls, and boys, bedfellows and friends and strangers with gentle hands or greedy mouths. There was distance, so much distance, and an ache on Mark’s chest that he learned to live with it, even though it was hard to keep on breathing through it sometimes.

 There was that night on Seattle, when he and Eduardo kept yelling at each other and talking around in circles, and then it started to rain, and they didn’t knew whether to laugh or to cry, so they met halfway and fucked while it poured all around them instead.

There was the time when he’d brought home a puppy, and Eduardo insisted on getting a cat, only to have Dustin deciding to give them a turtle named Gertrude a couple of weeks later. There was the time when his sister had been on car accident, and she’d lost the baby, and Wardo wiped his tears away, the calloused pads of his fingertips brushing against Mark’s cheeks, nose, lips, and he kept murmuring  _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ , and he felt so dizzy with love and gratitude he couldn't speak.

There were some nights when he stayed up too late, when Eduardo would be in another side on the planet for weeks at a time, nights when they could barely look at each other. There were nights when they would let their bodies do the talking, flesh slapping against flesh, and mornings too, mornings where they fucked lazy and content on their bed, kissed under the shower, Mark tasting coffee on Wardo’s lips and smiling, drawing him back in for more, his hands never getting enough, never enough.

Mark can remember all those nights. He remember all those moments, misses all of them, store them away and beckon them forth when he hears Wardo’s puking in the bathroom, when he notices the way his skin seems to sag away from his body, the dark circles under his eyes, so much bigger now on his hollowed his face.

He hopes he doesn’t remember this part, when it’s all over. He hopes he forgets all of this, hopes he can drown on the sounds Wardo makes when he’s coming, on that special smile he only has for Mark, on the taste of tangerine on his lips whenever it was summer. He hopes he can hold on to these things and never let them go, just like he holds Eduardo at night and prays, begs,  _not now, not ever, please stay, I don’t want you to suffer anymore, I’ll be better, I swear, just don’t die, please don’t die._

 

_ Someone is digging your grave right now. _   
_ Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said,  
so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. _

Thirteen months after his diagnose, Eduardo breaks his promise.  
  
Mark thinks of how he’d said that night, a little over four years ago;  _I’ll follow you anywhere._  
  
He’d meant it. He still does. He wonders what he’s supposed to do with that, with a promise he’d made and intended to keep, except that Wardo forgot to fulfill his. Mark had forgotten what it felt like, to be this angry with Eduardo, to feel the bitter words at the tip on his tongue directed at him. But what's the point of uttering them, in spewing cutting remarks from across the table at Wardo, when he’s not there to listen, to be hurt by them, to fight back?  
  
He’s not being sued this time, but his best friend is still walking out of his life, and now there’s no do-over, no apologies to be made, no compromise they can reach so that Mark can have his cake and eat it too.  
  
This time, once Wardo’s gone, he will never ever come back.

 

_ Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are _   
_ the monsters we put in the box to test our strength  
against. _

Grief is a vicious thing – persistent, and ugly, and, at times, even all consuming.   
  
Mark pushes back against it, and he even wins sometimes, but he loses most of the battles too.   
  
He tries to think about Wardo someplace safe, warm, someplace where there’s no needles and sickness and misery and pain. He fails.   
  
He tries to concentrate on the good days, simple days, the weight of a hand against a hand, thighs touching while they sat on the couch, the way that that ridiculous hair looked even more ridiculous and touchable in the mornings, sticking everywhere because god forbid Wardo could sleep quietly, no, he just had to rut and mumble and shuffle around the bed hundred of times before he would settle in a position that he felt comfortable with, his toes warm against Mark’s calves, perfecting the art of blanket-robbing to its finest.   
  
He tries to concentrate on that, but then he remembers how it scared him sometimes, the way Eduardo slept when they were on the hospital, stock-still and feverish, all chapped lips and cold hands. Then there was that morning when he never woke up, he just laid there, cold everywhere, and Mark couldn’t do single thing to stop it, to warm him up.   
  
He tries, and he fails.  
  
It’s a constant uphill battle and he's feeling out of breath.   
  
It makes him tired, the way he can never win. Mark’s not used to not winning, to not getting his way, and even though he’s dead and buried and gone, Eduardo still has to prove he’s always been the exception to Mark’s rules, his one weakness, his fatal flaw.

  
  


_ The way you slam your body into mine reminds me _   
_ I'm alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling,  
and they're only a few steps behind you, finding  
the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren't   
stitched up quite right, the place they could almost  
slip right into through if the skin wasn't trying to   
keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side  
of the theater where the curtain keeps rising. _

Dustin and Chris try, they really do. His mother does her best, and his sisters won’t leave him alone, and even Sean does some half-assed attempt of helping him. But Mark, well, he thinks he might just be beyond reach, beyond help.  
  
“You see, Wardo?” He tells him while he types some unintelligible line of code on his new computer (the one old broke, actually, he broke the old one, battered against their kitchen table in a fit of rage when he accidentally bumped his elbow on Eduardo’s ceramic mug, the one with the Cheshire cat from Alice in the Wonderland, when Mark was trying to keep Gertrude, their turtle, from crawling across his laptop. The mug was chipped in two places, and its handle had been broken with the fall, but Mark glued the whole thing back together, his hands shaking, the words sorry playing on a loop on his head, because Wardo would be so mad, he loves that stupid mug, and he stopped, he had forgoten for a couple of minutes that Eduardo wouldn’t get mad because he wasn’t there, because he’d left, he was dead, and the mug was Mark’s now, was one of the many things Wardo had left behind). “You were wrong, Wardo. You were not my only friend.”  
  
He thinks he hears Eduardo's laugh, the one he had for Mark when he was being especially difficult but endearing at the same time, but he might’ve been wrong. Things are splitting at the seams these days, and he’s having trouble figuring out what’s real and what’s not.  
  
Evidence number 1 – the ties.  
  
As a rule, Mark’s ties were either blue or white. Wardo’s were multicolored, but he favored reds, greens, and sometimes, even black ones. But a couple of nights ago, when Mark was doing the laundry, he came across a pink Armani tie. He’d never owned a tie like that, and neither had Wardo, though he’d mentioned something, back before words like  _nausea, morphine_ or  _maybe you should consider building a memorial, sir_ , and Mark still remembered that.  
  
What he doesn’t remember is either of them having the time to buy it.  
  
So how did it get there, mixed amongst Mark’s laundry? Dustin seemed to believe that one of his pets put it there, Sean thought that someone broke into the house and messed with his laundry just to keep him on his toes, and Chris…  
  
Chris thought that Mark had washed his white tie with a red one of Eduardo’s, which simply wasn’t possible, because that side of the clothes hadn’t been touched since the funeral.

An honest mistake, Chris had called it, but Mark, Mark didn't make mistakes, he made calculated risks, and if he sometimes forgot to think about all the possible outcomes, that didn't make him any less aware of the coiches he'd made in his life, or the weight they carried with them.  

So that left only one possibility, the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Wardo’s ghost was trying to tell him something. That maybe that, option number one, Mark should be more careful with his deceased boyfriend’s possessions. Or that, option number two, maybe Eduardo was still around their house, somewhere, keeping him company.

Keeping his promise.

Mark likes to believe in option number two.

 

 _ I passed _ _  through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled  
around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made  
this place for you. A place for you to love me.  _

 

He sits alone on his office, sometimes, and he stares at the code he's writing.   
  
He stares at the code and he can almost make out the shape of Wardo’s eyes, that hollow on his neck where Mark used to bury his face in it, his funny-looking navel, the curve of his hipbones. He’s writing him up, memorizing him down, in all the ways he can. He’s already lost him, twice, and forgetting isn’t a luxury that Mark has, wants to have. He codes and immortalizes and remembers, because this is the only way he has of staying sane, of keeping all the moments they had safe, of having a forever, of keeping Eduardo alive.   
  
He codes and he stares and he remembers, and the thinks –   
  
_ I miss you. I love you. I forgive you for leaving me. I’ll forgive you. I forgive you. _

 

_ I was away, I don't know where, lying on the floor, _   
_ pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you  
but the victory is that I could not stomach it.  _

He looks at the body, what used to be Eduardo, and he wants to scream at him, push him around, but is afraid of feeling it again, that unusual coldness against his fingertips, the unnatural stillness, the quiet, his numb, numb eyes.   
  
In all the ways that Eduardo has ever hurt Mark, this has got to be, by far, the worst.

 

 _ We have swallowed him up,  _ they said.    
_ It's beautiful. It really is. _

Mark visits his grave once.  
  
He looks at the beautiful marble headstone, posh, like Eduardo’s father wanted it to be (he resents not having a say in it, whether Wardo would be buried or cremated. He doesn’t think it’s fair, that the Earth gets to have him, when Mark was the one that wanted him the most), and he thinks –  
  
 _ Tis better to have loved and lost,  _ and he laughs, manic, the taste of it bitter against his tongue, the sound foreign against his hears, feels rather than realize that he's crying, silent, salty tears.   
  
If he actually believe that, what the fuck Tennyson thought he knew about love anyway?

 

_ I had a dream about you. _   
_ We were in the gold room where everyone  _   
_ finally gets what they want, so I said What do you _   
_ want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me.  _

In his dreams, Eduardo is always too close to touch, but never close enough to actually make contact.  
  
He looks healthy again, healed, skin golden, eyes alight, the same gravity-defying hair of his, and his voice even sounds the same, soothing and full of affection. Mark has a hole in his chest and Wardo has his heart in his hands, keeps turning it over, examining it and laughing, the blood smearing his palms and wrists, staining his half-bitten off nails, a bad habit so entrenched that he apparently hadn’t even been able to quit it despite being dead.  
  
Mark smiles, and it doesn’t bother him, the hole in his chest, or the fact that Eduardo died and left and that he got to keep Mark’s heart with him when all he has is a big house filled with clutter and empty spaces where Wardo used to be, their feuding pets, a broken and badly stiched-up mug, as well as a bunch of suits in their closet that he can't bring himself to either wear or throw them away.  
  
He smiles at him, and Wardo smiles back, that brilliant smile of his, whispers  _kiss me, baby,_ and, _I’ll be seeing you again._  
  
It doesn’t get much better than this.

_ Here I am _   
_ leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome  
burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,  
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.   
We are all going forward. None of us are going back. _

 

 

But Mark wakes up, he always does, and it hits him all over again.   
  
_Going, going, gone_. 

**Author's Note:**

> A.N: I don’t even know, you guys. It’s two a.m., and I keep re-reading Crush, by Richard Siken, and it all keeps coming back to Mark and Eduardo. Unbeta-ed, because I don't have one.


End file.
